My mom's rule

My mother used to tell me, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

So I wonder how I can' nicely' say that life is going by so very fast that I can't even keep up with myself, and I miss spending time with my kids so much that my heart aches, and my worst enemy in life is most often my own thoughts. Being a perfectionist sucks.
I don't think there's a nice way to say it, so I just won't. Not that I don't have a ton of beautiful blessings in my life, because I most certainly do and I am thankful for each and every one. I just wish I could learn to see the cup as half full instead of half empty. And therein lies the problem. Because, you see, I don't want 'half' anything.....I want it all!

Spoiled child.

Okay, Enough!

Now, honestly, how many times have I said that?
I notice a very strange pattern that happens to me time and time again. I can't tell what's causing it, but it seems like every time I embark on some time of body cleansing, whether it's JuiceFeasting, the Ejuva cleanse or even the 14 Day Lifefood Fast, (I've done them all in some fashion or another), things go haywire in my life and I go through terrible stress or emotional upheaval. What's up with that? I know I'm not the one causing these things, but it gets annoying!
So we got to the tail end of our Ejuva situation, my most recent attempt, and things were going great until......family issues. Kid things. Motherly woes. Oh, crap. Not again!
I've been through the fire with each one of my kids. Sometimes more than once. Well, another fiery trial reared its head recently and I have been knocked for quite a loop the last several weeks. So much so that my diet bit the dust, as is often the case when I get stressed. I eat to supress emotions and calm myself. That is, when I'm not so uptight that I can't eat. Or sleep. Or work. Or function.
So, this has been an excellent opportunity for me to look at my tendencies, my patterns, and most of all my thoughts, attitudes and beliefs. I was shown (yet again) that I must reprogram my mind, if you will, and...basically.....knock it off, already!
If I pray for help and then mope around in despair, weeping, as if it won't come, then what exactly am I doing here? I must have faith despite circumstances; otherwise, it isn't faith now, is it?
With so much of my focus on health, it is crucial to remember that physical diet is only one aspect of it, and not even the most important. Our mental diet and spiritual diet factor in there, too. This latest episode with my dear son is showing me how unhealthy my mental diet can be. I physically make myself sick over something that I can't do anything about. That is not as it should be. And not being able to do anything about it is what the 'mother' in me cannot bear!
Here's to a week of answers, miracles and moving forward. I am so very ready. Ready for my family to be whole. And healthy. Very healthy. Which is what started this whole blogging thing in the first place....way back when.

Peace to us all.

Of cakes, crowns and cleanses

July. What a beast. And I thought June was intense! This month we celebrated Mark's 20th birthday. I will try to refrain from calling him 'my baby' and just stick with 'the youngest'. If only there was a way I could have stuck a house and a job into his card we'd all be thrilled! And I might have a few less gray hairs.
I finally had to admit defeat and ended up in the dentist's office for a crown this week. I was really hoping that they would remove the mercury filling in the process, but due to the placement of the fracture and condition of the tooth, they didn't need to. Rats. Better luck next time, eh? After all the research I have done on mercury, especially in relation to amalgam fillings, I would dearly love to have them all removed. Oh well, like most things, you just wish in one hand and.................hmmmm.
Bob and I are officially into Phase 2 of our Ejuva cleanse today. It has already surpassed any previous cleanses we have done in the past. Besides the increased intestinal activity, I have mostly noticed a lot of emotional upheaval like apathy, discouragement, stress, frustration, and a lack of concentration. Combine that with the normal everyday stresses of life and I'm probably not the life of the party these days. But I know enough to realize that it will pass, and the temporary discomfort of detoxing anything, whether it be physical or emotional, is worth it in the long run. That is, if you can keep from simply 'retoxing' in the future.
Dan seems to have a lot of trouble with relapsing into horrible sinus infections which land him in the emergency room every time. Today he wound up with a massive double ear infection and so I picked him from the ER to bring him to our house so he could sleep it off until he felt well enough to go......unhome. Again. And so the saga continues. Stay tuned for the next episode of "Days of Our Detox."

Hi-ho, hi-ho a-cleansing we will go.....

Wednesday, July 8 marks Day 2 of our Ejuva Cleanse. I am already impressed! We found the best price at Paul Nison's Raw Life. It's not nearly as complicated as I thought, and it seems to already be 'working' in a very gentle and polite way. There's really not much to it. During the first week, there's only 3 steps that you do in the morning and you're good to go for the rest of the day. And I do mean good to go. There's an essential oil combination that you massage into your skin twice a day and I really like putting a few drops in my bath at night. It smells very mildly of roses.
I wonder how the cleansing effects of Ejuva will mix with my dental work I have to have done on Monday. Because I am mentally and emotionally a 3 year old when it comes to the dentist, they offered me two different anesthetics, plus nitrous oxide, if I want and need them. They also said I could take a valium before I come. Bob said by the time they're done with me, I'll be begging to come back again real soon! I don't want to overdo it, though. Not only will it just add extra burdens for my body to cleanse, but I heard of a guy named Christian Andreason who 'died' (for like 2 minutes) in the dental chair after a mix of medications. Or something like that. Let's change the subject, shall we?
On a more serious note, this has been a real wringer of a week emotionally. Lots of stuff coming up in various areas, which I'm sure is a good thing in the long run, it's just painful to go through. I've been feeling like a mouse in a maze, and no matter what route I try to take I come to a dead end. And since I am so melodramatic I have a tendency towards depression and futility. Make a note to self: Self, stop that! Must have faith. I am usually very upbeat and cheerful, and I love to spread it around. It brings me satisfaction. (That and feeding people nutritious food.) But lately....oy vay! Good thing the glowing ball of beauty named Kayla stopped by and hugged me and cheered me up or I would still be on the couch eating corn chips and crying. (Wait til she finds out I called her a glowing ball of beauty.....but you tell me......isn't it true?


Other than dentists and depression, life is happening in spite of it all. My boys are discovering life and experimenting with various things, as I hang by my fingernails from the cliff waiting to see what happens next, praying for their safety and sanity. My hubby is patient and forgiving of my weirdness, and after only five years, I'm sure he really wonders what he's gotten himself into at times. My beautiful and inspiring boss is soon to return from a trip to tidy up all the messes I've made while she was gone.
So, yeah, I'm hanging in there, just like all of you. Living, loving, learning and growing.
And 'going' (thanks to Ejuva...)

Peace!

Gearing Up for the Mega Cleanse

I wonder how in the world I ended up here! As someone who doesn't necessarily support a lot of supplementing or superfooding, or even herbal cleanses, for some reason, I felt compelled to try the Ejuva Cleanse and even Bob said he would jump on the bandwagon with me. Maybe it's just because it's summer and we feel more like cleansing during that time of year, or maybe it's all of the dietary indiscretions that I have succumbed to lately that makes me want to get a fresh start. Whatever the case, we are soon to embark on the four week cleanse that I never thought I would actually be doing, let alone having someone do it with me!
Kayla and I are going to be teaming up to eat a pre-cleansing diet that includes all the colors of the rainbow this coming week. This should be fun! One day it's all red foods, the next day orange, then yellow foods, etc. until we've eaten our way through all the colors of the rainbow. And the purpose of that is? Uh, to say we did it, I guess.
I plan on keeping a journal of my Ejuva experience just for future reference. I am hoping that it will help me reach a higher level of cellular cleanliness that will help me be able to tune in to what my body wants and needs on a daily basis as far as food and nutrition goes. As I have mentioned before, I have forever been a very regimented person when it comes to that area of my life, always on a diet or program or doing 'only this' and 'none of that', or low glycemic or any number of rule-oriented ways of eating that I can white knuckle my way through for a while, but it always ends in the same thing: fall off the deep end because I have been denying myself something and I can't continue. For instance, I go on a regimen that says you shouldn't eat until noon, so I drink only juice and distract myself from my hunger until finally it's lunchtime. Or I really crave a banana nutmilk smoothie but tell myself "No, bananas have too much sugar," so I don't have it. And the list is endless, depending on what eating regimen or rules I have locked myself into at any given time. I love to try different schools of thought when it comes to eating a raw food diet and believe me, I have tried them all! Low glycemic (which has its merits), low fat, food combining, not eating at night, not eating in the morning, juicing every day, juicing only one day a week, eating all raw, part raw, eating a certain percentage raw, you name it, I've done it. But what I've never really done is just listen to my body or eat what I want instead of what I should have. My mind rules my body until my body rebels. Then we end up back in the old familiar binge/purge cycle from earlier years, it just looks a little different, and isn't quite so severe.
So I said all that nonsense to merely point out that part of the lure of eating a natural diet is to eat it naturally, without any worries or food rules. As someone who has had glimpses of ever increasing health, vitality and weight loss, I know that eating intuitively is becoming my primary goal. As time goes on, the amount of healthy food one eats should decrease naturally and normally.
So I am beyond ready to put aside the 'thou shalt nots' and tune in to what my body is telling me that it wants and needs, not what someone else tells me it should want and need. Hmm, come to think of it, I guess I'm like that in my spiritual life as well.
No matter what I do, I can't get that Utopian free spirit inside to shut up and sit down and behave, she keeps trying to come out and run free throughout the garden. Barefoot, of course!

Raw Mom Summit